Decided to add a 4" ARCA rail from Salmon River Solutions, as well as a Spartan gunsmith adapter to my new Seekins Element. The ARCA rail went in fine, just had to fine tune placement of the t-nuts inside the stock.
I decided to try and put the gunsmith adapter in to a solid piece just an inch or so in front of the front action screw pillar. My thought process was to try and fully test the adapter in this thicker section of stock (vs drilling through the stock closer to the muzzle). Also, with it further after, it would give me more swing on the gun with the bipod installed.
Anyway, after about 1/8 inch into drilling in the forstner bit hit a much harder material. I believe this was the guide point of the bit. I do not know if there is still potentially an aluminum block for the bedding pillar in here, but the drill press was not making any progress with some fairly inexpensive forstner bits. I decided to stop drilling until i could determine what this aterciaal was and if it's safe to drill into or if it would compromise the bedding / recoil capability of the gun.
So, do any of you Seekins or just smart stock folks know what I was running into here? Is there aluminum in there or is it just a super dense / touch fiberglass / carbon? Would a tougher bit be fine here, or would this be causing structural damage to the stock?
Either way, when I look at the gun reassembled, I think I would actually prefer that bipod mount forward of the ARCA swiss rail, so it will be back to the drawing board after I figure out how to epoxy that in if we end up drilling completely through the stock...
I decided to try and put the gunsmith adapter in to a solid piece just an inch or so in front of the front action screw pillar. My thought process was to try and fully test the adapter in this thicker section of stock (vs drilling through the stock closer to the muzzle). Also, with it further after, it would give me more swing on the gun with the bipod installed.
Anyway, after about 1/8 inch into drilling in the forstner bit hit a much harder material. I believe this was the guide point of the bit. I do not know if there is still potentially an aluminum block for the bedding pillar in here, but the drill press was not making any progress with some fairly inexpensive forstner bits. I decided to stop drilling until i could determine what this aterciaal was and if it's safe to drill into or if it would compromise the bedding / recoil capability of the gun.
So, do any of you Seekins or just smart stock folks know what I was running into here? Is there aluminum in there or is it just a super dense / touch fiberglass / carbon? Would a tougher bit be fine here, or would this be causing structural damage to the stock?
Either way, when I look at the gun reassembled, I think I would actually prefer that bipod mount forward of the ARCA swiss rail, so it will be back to the drawing board after I figure out how to epoxy that in if we end up drilling completely through the stock...
